Captain Obvious

Cool. Just wanted to quadruple check. Good luck with your efforts, and I hope they pay off soon. Have you considered M-80's?

Haha!! Exactly. I have two in a baggie here somewhere. Bought them about a year ago and haven't gotten around to finishing the job! 8491A202 Hardened drill bushing- .375+ id, .625+ od, .375 long You're a smart guy!

Did that happen at Hybrid as well? I remember that on Zcar... Very unpleasant.

Are you positively completely absolutely 100% without a doubt willing to stake your reputation on it convinced that you have all the retaining hardware removed? Just asking... I have to.

I've sectioned an original shift knob into a couple pieces, and after seeing the inside (the part that has never seen the sun), I believe the knobs are made out of the same material and color as the steering wheels. On the inside, they are much more tinted toward red than they are on the outside. Homogeneous throughout, and red. When I get a chance, I'll snap a pic or two.

Nice work. So where did you source the new door detent rollers? I would really like to do this too, but it's lower on the priority list. I've already identified something from McMaster that I think would work, but if you've got something genuine, then that might be even better. What'cha got?

Nice. I like the trigger wheel. I've given some thought to running coil on plug, but I don't currently have any way to sequence them properly. One question about that wheel... Are you sure it's sitting completely flush against the back of the damper assembly? It looks like the metal tabs may be overlapping the rubber joint. Can't tell from the pics if there's a raised bump or anything there that may be causing some interference.

Excellent. Glad it was that simple. Now put a relay on your starter.

Wow... Completely coincidental. I was doing the exact same thing yesterday!! With the exact same tools, and learning the exact same lessons! Making new lines for my buddy's 260:

The intermittent START signal is probably because you have eaten up the internal contacts with the current drawn by the starter solenoid. It'll happen again to your new replacement. You might not be around anymore, but it'll happen. I put a relay between the switch and the starter.

Haha! Thanks guys. Site, you should see my fingers in the winter! In the winter, they spontaneously crack! And I don't think I could ever be a teacher. I doubt I would have the patience for the people who really didn't want to be there.

That's known as "work hardening". Basically the mechanical stresses result in local hardening of the material being worked. And worked. And worked. Honestly, I tried to keep quiet, but it's like Roger Rabbit...

And here's a quick video of this pin retained prototype rig. I think I need a better video camera:

Hi Kats, Here's another concept for the lug nuts. I don't think this is what they did (I think they forged it into place), but if you really want to completely hide the retaining feature to confuse your competition, here's one way I came up with to do that. Again, since this is proof of concept only, I took shortcuts. Most noticeably, I did not make a tapered ring this time, but instead just used a simple cylindrical collar as it was much easier and does not affect the viability of the test. I cut a groove on the inside of the collar and drilled two holes through the "nut" body: I then pressed two small pins into the body: I pressed the pins flush with the outside diameter of the body: The lengths of the pins are such that when pressed flush with the outside, they protrude into the inner portion of the body: I made a mandrel a few thousandths smaller than the ID of the nut body and tapered it on the end. I used a portion of an old bolt because it has a quality heat treat of at least grade 8.8: While the pins are flush with the outside, slip the collar over the body, put the mandrel in place, and press the mandrel into the part on the arbor press. When you do this, it forces the two small pins outward and they catch the groove in the collar: Thread the ID and you've got a retained collar with no externally visible retaining feature: I still think they forged it, but it was nice to see this more elegant method work.

Thanks Kats. I don't think I'm qualified to make real ones though. Material selection (for real), heat treating, plating... Those are the difficult parts for me. If I get a few more moments, I'll test the other (less likely) retention theories I mentioned before. I'm sure I can come up with an internal hidden retention pin, but the one I'm really curious about is the differential temperature assembly. That would be really neat if I could get that to work!

Fantastic! I'm so glad I got a chance to see the original carcass before the work began. Gives me a greater sense of the amount of work you went through. Now all I have to do is see it now that it's done! So one question though... What are you going to do now? Your wife probably doesn't want you in the house that much. Has she started suggesting other projects or hobbies for you?

And since motion is such an important part of the concept, here's a video of the prototype rig:

Hi Kats, I got some time to work on a proof of concept for the retaining collar. Since this is just proof of concept, I took several shortcuts. For example, I did not drill and thread the center and I made the taper collar out of aluminum instead of steel because it is easier to work with. I also made the angle 45 degrees instead of 60 degrees because that is how my lathe was set-up and I didn't want to change it. None of those affect the viability of a test of the retaining feature. So here is my test rig: I included a slight undercut on the shoulder and a small counterbore on the taper to provide material to forge into place to retain the collar. I'm not sure it was really necessary, but I'm just making this up as I go: I tested the viability first with the portion through the ring longer than necessary so I could see the change in material from the forging operation. Here is the first forging on the press, using a hardened bearing race as the forging tool: It worked quite well to retain the tapered ring. Here's the displaced material. Under magnification, you can see a small amount of flared out material at the corner of the shoulder: And here's the part after the second forge test. I cut off the original forged area and did it again with the shoulder cut off closer to the ring. It's not perfect as the surfaces don't line up exactly, but I believe someone who really knows what they are doing could adjust a couple dimensions and hit it spot on. Maybe even I could hit it after one or two more test parts:

I still think a compression test will highlight or rule out a multitude of potential issues, but if that doesn't come up with anything, then I've got one WAG based on past experience. Let me tell you a story... I once had a car that ran rich for several reasons. The bowl level was a little high (because I was too lazy to fix it), the jets were a size larger than stock (because I was a kid), and the accelerator pump linkage was a little too touchy and set off a burst of gas with too small of a pedal movement (because I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to fix it). Also, when I would park the car hot, it would percolate some fuel from the carbs and bubble a little over into the intake manifold. During the hot summer months, every now and again it would make this big "whoosh" sound while cranking, and it would let out a big cloud of whitish smoke, and it would then smoke for a couple minutes until everything seemed to settle back out to normal. Looking , back, I believe what was going on was that through the rich running and the percolation, I was mixing unburned gasoline in with my oil in the crankcase. This would actually create a volatile gaseous mix of air inside the crankcase, and if it reached the right mix of air to fuel, would spontaneously burn off as I was cranking the engine. And after an "event", it took a couple minutes to burn off the residue that got burped (vurped) into areas where it didn't belong (like into the crankcase ventilation system). Like I said... WAG, but my question would be: What does your oil smell like, and when was the last time you changed it?

Did you do a compression test? Can you see any holes in pistons looking in the spark plug holes? With the plugs out, you should be able to move the pistons around pretty easy and get a decent look at all the piston faces.

Hi Kats, Thank you for the sketch and video showing the taper collar spinning independently of the rest of the nut. And your English is not the problem. The problem is me overstepping my understanding and making assumptions about how something is put together without ever examining one in person. Thank you for your patience. I do not believe the retaining feature that holds the collar in place is a separate piece. I still believe there are just to pieces to the assembly. I do not see any seam where the face of the shoulder meets the shank. Looking at the picture you posted here, that face appears to be integral with the center portion of the nut: With that in mind, I suspect they forged the metal outward slightly to deform the shank a small amount and therefore retain the collar. They may have machined a thin section of material to ease this process. There appears as if there could be a jagged burr edge of extruded material visible on the silver plated nut on the right. I do not see the same burr on the yellow plated nut on the right, but it could just be better processing on that part. It would only take a small amount of material interference to prevent that collar from slipping off. In application, all the force would be in the direction to press the collar towards the hex portion and away from the retaining feature. It seems the retaining feature really only needs to be strong enough to keep the collars from falling off during shipping and handling, and while rattling around in a toolbox. Some other less likely ideas... 1) They undercut the shank a tiny amount and heated the collar (and maybe chilled the nut) and then slipped the two parts together while they were at very different temperatures. Once at the same temperature, the parts would be held together. 2) One other wild idea is that there are retaining pins inside the nut body that were forced outward before the threading operation. Would you like for me to make one or two to test some of the ideas above?

Thanks for the pics and info guys. I've (thankfully) not yet had to mess with that part of the car and I appreciate the education. I haven't studied the design at all, but the general concept for all the rubber bushings on the car is that there is no direct metal to metal contact between the two things being connected together. The center metal cylinder would be tightly pinched between the metal of the washers, but the rubber would isolate the outer portion of the bushing.

I think the longer it goes without them changing back, the less likely it is that they ever will. Honestly, I think if they were going back, it would have happened by now. I wonder if they are publically traded, and what the last two months of stock value look like...

Well I wouldn't be so quick to condemn the motor without a couple diagnostic tests first, especially in the middle of the driving season. Compression test would be high on my list. I'm still hoping it's not something serious. I don't know how long it takes to burn through a piston, but I would hope you would have heard some pinging in order for that to happen.

Either of those washer designs will work just fine on the inboard side of the spring. They just cheaped out and used the same one for front and back locations. If you're going for 100% originality, then have at it, but if you're just looking for functionality, you can use the quarter-turn locking washers on both sides of the springs. As long as they are large enough not to slip through the holes in the brake shoes (which I assume is the case), then it should be just fine.